A number of different types of beds, for example hospital beds, are designed to raise and lower. For example, hospital beds may be designed to raise and lower in a straight configuration and/or one or more parts of the bed may incline and decline. One particular example is the bed of an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine. Such beds need to move in and out of the MRI circular magnet and also need to raise and lower. Typically, a hydraulic cylinder is incorporated into the MRI bed to allow for the raising and lowering. Although such cylinders work well, they can sometimes have size constraints, and they can also have structural weak points from side loads applied to the cylinders.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an improved hydraulic cylinder for use in beds, such as MRI beds and other hospital beds. It would also be desirable if the improved hydraulic cylinders could be used or adapted or use with other devices and systems. At least some of these objectives will be addressed by the embodiments described in this application.